This book injected itself into my reading stream after a road trip. Someone else was listening to it, and I got hooked on the first few chapters. It’s an alternate history sci-fi book that imagines Japan won World War II. It’s kind of Big Brother meets Ready Player One meets Pacific Rim. It’s an easy read, in the sense that the characters are well-developed, dialogue is fast-paced, and there’s lots of movement. It’s a hard read, in that it’s grim and violent and sometimes hard to tell who is good and who is bad.

The stand-out concept for me was the idea that the government monitors people’s video-game habits. They track choices made in games and use patterns to identify people who might be rebellious or threaten the status quo. That’s a great premise for a book. With the right writer/ director, it’d be a great movie, too.

What’s Next?

I’ve been eyeing a book about the uses and abuses of history, but it never quite worked itself into my other book thread. After my frustrations with Sinek and the themes of USJ, this seems like a good time.